Three Anniversaries
by colobonema
Summary: A routine medical examination stirs up some memories. Squinoa one-shot celebrating the twentieth anniversary of FFVIII, written for the Encore Round of the 2019 Successor Challenge.


Disclaimer: I make no claim whatsoever to the characters or world of Final Fantasy VIII, which is the property of Squaresoft/Square Enix.

* * *

**Three Anniversaries**

He ducked his head into the doorway of the Infirmary, and she looked up from her desk.

"Good morning, Instructor," she smiled.

He hovered uncertainly in the doorway, and for an instant she saw him as a seventeen-year-old again, head slightly tilted, a long strand of still-unruly hair threatening to fall into his eyes.

"Is this a good time for the second part of my medical?"

"As good a time as any. Take a seat, please."

He did as he was told, and Dr. Kadowaki sat down in the chair opposite him and took his pulse. He blinked a few times after she shone a flashlight in both of his eyes, and waited patiently as she examined his tongue.

"Say your name for me, please."

"Squall Leonhart."

"And your current position and former SeeD rank, please."

"Do we have to-"

"_Yes, _Squall, we do."

He folded his arms. "Currently Senior Instructor in Close Combat; formerly Rank A SeeD and Commander."

"Very good, Instructor. Do you know what day it is?"

"Thursday," he replied with some irritation. "Does dementia testing kick in as soon as you get to thirty-seven, or something?"

"That last one was me making conversation, Squall. And I didn't mean the day. I meant the date."

"It's April the... oh." His blue eyes widened a fraction. "Huh."

"Indeed. It seems to me that it's a rather auspicious day for you. Three anniversaries, if I'm not mistaken."

Squall's brows knitted together. "Three?"

"It's twenty years to the day that you became a SeeD, isn't it?"

"Yes, but..."

"Which also makes it twenty years of _this_ charming little feature." She pointed at the long-healed diagonal line that crossed his forehead, and suppressed a smile at the row of creases that now intersected it after three decades of habitual frowning.

"Oh." He snorted softly. "Well, I appreciate you remembering, but I'm hardly going to send my scar an anniversary card."

Dr. Kadowaki exhaled heavily as she rose from her seat. "It really does seem like yesterday that I was stitching it up. Did you ever imagine you'd still be here, back in this room, twenty years later?"

Squall shrugged and looked at the ceiling. "Don't know. I think I had a vague feeling I'd be dead by now."

"That sounds like you. Life has a funny way of subverting our expectations, doesn't it? For example, _I _was a hundred percent sure I'd be retired and living it up in a nice beachfront apartment in Dollet."

He gave her a sidelong glance. "That's chiefly your own fault for being far too good for the Headmistress to let you go, Doc."

"I've told Quistis she can have me until I'm seventy, and then I'm off, regardless of whether she's found a replacement for me."

Squall nodded in approval. "Sounds more than fair. So what's my third anniversary today?"

"I would have thought your wife would've reminded you."

His expression remained one of incomprehension. "My wi-"

Kadowaki clicked her tongue in amusement. "Oh goodness Squall, if it's twenty years since the field exam, it stands to reason that it's twenty years since the ball, surely? The first time you laid eyes on each other?"

"Ah." His lips twitched. "Rinoa's the type who thinks that if I've remembered our wedding anniversary, I'm doing pretty well."

"Lucky for you that you found such an easy-going woman."

A slow smile inched its way across his face, and a distant look came into his eyes. "I'm fully aware of how lucky I am."

She turned round and sat down at the computer monitor, hiding her smirk. If there was one thing that made the years visibly fall away from Squall Leonhart, it was the mention of his wife. _You two kids... still absurdly cute together, after all this time. _"Let's take a look at your blood work from last week. Good overall, but you're still slightly deficient in iodine, B12 and K2."

"And as I always say, you need to take that up with the ladies in the cafeteria."

"Nobody forces you to eat there. Take Rinoa and the kids out to a seafood buffet once in a while." She waggled a finger under his nose in admonishment. "There's _no_ excuse for an iodine deficiency in Balamb, Squall."

He sent her a resigned glare. "Understood. Anything else I should take note of?"

"Not really." She clicked through the chart of results of the previous week's tests: bloods, urine, x-rays, body scans. "Kidney function is fine, neural scan was good... Your muscle density has dropped by 2% in the last six months." At Squall's small frown, she added, "That's hardly unexpected. You're no longer in active service, and you're nearing forty."

He scowled slightly. "I'm thirty-_seven._"

"Like I said, nearing forty."

He felt an irrational, burning need to deflect the word _forty _as far away as possible. "It's not-"

"Aging is a privilege, Squall. Take it from me."

There was a solemnity in Kadowaki's eyes now, and he knew she was thinking of all those they had lost along the way. "...Yeah. You're right, as ever, Doc."

She gave him a fond smile, that almost-motherly smile of hers, shut down the spreadsheet, and began to pack away her stethoscope. "I think we're done here. Give Rinoa my love, won't you?"

* * *

In a modest Balamb townhouse a few miles away, Rinoa stumbled into the whitewashed kitchen, the cool surface of the stone floor tiles acting like a soothing balm to her tired feet. She was bleary-eyed with the kind of exhaustion only known to one who has spent the last two hours cajoling, pacifying and attempting to sneak away from a fractious toddler and a hyper, just-learned-to-crawl baby who perpetually found the world far too exciting to sleep. But it was done. They were sweetly, mercifully unconscious. And she hadn't even resorted to a muffled Sleep spell this time.

She flung the fridge open and rifled in the door for her supply of 'emergency' chocolate, grabbed a bar and sat down at the table, ready to savor the taste of - she turned the wrapper over to check - Trabian extra dark with chunks of salted caramel. Squall's face briefly drifted into her mind, one eyebrow wryly raised. _I don't think you can legitimately call it an emergency supply if you have it every night, Rin._

_Shut up, _she told the vision-Squall firmly, and chomped into the bar, demolishing the entire thing just in time before she heard the key turn in the door.

Squall walked in and laid down his bag, a faint smile on his face as he registered the crinkled paper wrapper and the smear of chocolate on his wife's lips, but said nothing.

"Oh," she said in lieu of a greeting. "I thought you were on detention supervision duty tonight."

He shrugged off his jacket. "I persuaded Seifer to swap with me. Didn't take a lot of convincing. It's his natural habitat. I think he'd take charge of detention every day if Quistis let him."

She stood, and started to clear the clean dishes from the rack. "Do you have paperwork to catch up on, or something?"

He walked up behind her and slipped his arms round her waist. "No, I have a hard-working, forgiving and patient wife to say 'thank you' to."

Touched at the affection in his voice, Rinoa turned and leaned into his embrace. He mumbled something into her hair, and she asked him to repeat it.

"I said, 'And happy anniversary'."

"But it's not our-"

"Yes it is, Rin."

She pulled back and looked up at him, searching for the answer in his eyes, and her face lit up when the realization dawned. "...Oh! Wow. I can't believe you remembered that."

"I didn't. Doctor K did."

"That was sweet of her."

"I think she was mainly feeling nostalgic about stitching up my forehead twenty years ago."

Rinoa reached up and traced the faint pink line of his scar gently with one finger, then stood on tiptoes to place a kiss on it. Her eyes twinkled at him. "You're still the best-looking guy here, my love."

When she made to move away, he held onto her arm, and she saw that a familiar intensity had crept into his gaze. "How long have they been asleep?"

"About half an hour."

He cocked his head as he did a quick mental calculation. "So we've got around two hours until the next screamy-milky-baby interruption?"

"Mm-hm. Do you have any particular plans in mind?"

"Yes." He pulled her in closer, tighter than before and added in a low growl, "I should warn you that none of them involve any clothing whatsoever."

Rinoa was bone-tired, aching all over from a day of carrying and feeding two small humans, and had thought that she wanted nothing more than an early night; but that gleam in his eye warmed her and thrilled her just as it had when they were teenagers, and she smiled and took his hand, tugging him towards their bedroom. "I think you'd better show me what you mean, Instructor Leonhart."

* * *

This was written for the Bonus Round of the Successor Challenge, with the prompt word 'twenty'. My first attempt at a one-shot - thank you for reading!

A very happy 20th birthday to FFVIII. Here's to another twenty years! I hope everyone who picks up the remaster this week enjoys it. -colobonema


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